Instagram Might Not Care About Copyright Law and It Could Land Them in Trouble — Andy Day, writing for FStoppers, chronicles the frustrating efforts to deal with infringement on the social media site by photographer Martin McNeil. “McNeil wants to see the asymmetry of power brought about by the DMCA rebalanced. Artists create the content that makes these platforms money, and yet, the resources to ensure control of their work are massively outweighed by those available to the digital platforms seeking to exploit it.”
EFF Dealt Another Blow in Attempt to Strike Down Section 1201 of the Copyright Act — Devlin Hartline discusses the recent DC District Court decision denying a preliminary injunction to halt enforcement of the Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions. Says Hartline, “Congress was prescient in granting copyright owners rights over the digital locks that they use to secure their copyrighted works on the internet. The scale of online piracy has proven to be enormous, and copyright owners need every tool Congress can give them to nip piracy in the bud.”
Broadcasters Score Big Legal Win Against Locast, a Popular App Streaming Network TV — “In an order favoring the broadcasters, U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton writes that under the law, fundraising can only be used to defray costs of operating the service, not of expanding it into new markets. ‘Since portions of its user payments fund Locast’s expansion, its charges exceed those ‘necessary to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the secondary transmission service,’ which is the only exemption granted in Section 111 (a) (5).'” Locast has since announced it is shutting down.
State Sovereign Immunity Study — The U.S. Copyright Office this week published its study on copyright infringement by states and state entities. The study was requested by Congress in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2020 Allen v. Cooper decision, which struck down a law allowing copyright owners to sue states for infringement. The study found that while “state infringement represents a legitimate concern for copyright owners,” the Office could not say with certainty that the “record would be found sufficient to meet the constitutional test for abrogation.” Nevertheless, the Office concluded that the issue is worthy of Congressional attention, and it would support alternatives to abrogation legislation.
Exclusive: Amazon to remove more content that violates rules from cloud service, sources say — “It could turn Amazon, the leading cloud service provider worldwide with 40% market share according to research firm Gartner, into one of the world’s most powerful arbiters of content allowed on the internet, experts say.”